President, Nigeria Governors Forum!

Hardball always had the prognosis that this presidency suffers from Acute Smallness of Mind Syndrome, (ASMS) but he never made a pronouncement because he sought a second opinion. But in the last few days, he found convincing evidence that this presidential diminution is quite large and dangerous. To begin to see what we mean, consider an elephant being hoisted on the limbs of a goat. Driving the point home, a certain Ahmed Gulak who is described as the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters in a recent interview stated that the presidency recognised Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State and not Governor Rotimi Amaechi as the chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. It seemed like a kind of slip until Mr. Gulak reiterated his position on the matter.

Gov. Amaechi in response to Mr. Gulak’s interview pointed out that during the NGF election held on May 24 this year, his colleague-governors had returned him to office by 19 votes to 16. “We know that 19 is always greater than 16,” he said. As if Mr. Gulak had been living with a difficult-to-be-unrelieved pain over Gov. Amaechi’s NGF status, he fired back immediately at the governor insisting that his boss and the entire clan at the presidency knew only one NGF chairman and that is Gov. Jang. Hear him: “If Governor Amaechi is claiming that 19 governors re-elected him as chairman of the NGF, let him present the 19 governors. You are aware of the poor attendance at the retreat he organised in Sokoto. That was a sign that he is not the leader of the forum.”

First, why should it be a source of such intense concern to Gulak and his boss who leads the NGF? Recall that in the heat of the NGF crisis, the presidency had claimed to have no hand in it noting that the president was not a governor thus would never have anything to do with an affair that was strictly about governors. Though no one believed the president and his mouthpieces then, Gulak’s classic Freudian slip has now proven otherwise. President Goodluck Jonathan, it has now come out, is actually obsessed about who heads the NGF and morbidly obsessed about seeing to it that Gov. Amaechi does not head it. This explains why the president committed the moral suicide of hosting in Aso Rock Villa, a renegade gang led by Jang who shamelessly posed as winners of the NGF election even when it was clear to the watching world that they lost. We also now have a concrete explanation why Gov. Amaechi has been subjected to intense persecution and harassment by the presidency using the police and by instigating his former aides; including several attempts to abort his very rule through a faction of the state’s House of Assembly.

That the presidency which sits atop the entire country would be so sorely disturbed and distracted by a ceremonial body of 36 governors takes us back to the issue of a small-mindedness that is large and tottering dangerously. Yes, the NGF could pull political strings and wield enormous influence but all their machinations would pale beside a monstrous presidential might. Was it not said that there are a thousand ways to kill a cat? And isn’t the easiest and most innocuous way is by simply delivering on the numerous promises to the people?

Well, since nothing else seems to have worked in the attempt to ‘kill’ this cat of an Amaechi, Hardball would suggest that by some executive fiat or an affirmation to be promoted by the Jang-led band, President Goodluck Jonathan be made the head of the NGF, even if honorary. In doing so, we shall declare that NGF’s headship would no longer be titled ‘chairman’ but ‘president’. Since no citizen would dare challenge the president over this title, he simply becomes president of the NGF by acclamation. Case closed.